World Diplomacy and India

It has been a puzzle that India as the greatest democracy in the world did not respond to the the crushing of the democracy movement by the military junta in Myanmar.In 2002 the European Union had asked India to play a much larger role. The Nehru era saw the efflorescene of the Nonalignment movement of which Pandit Nehru, Jamal Nasser of Egypt and Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia were the architects. There was dignity attached to the names of the three leaders. The world seems to have shrunk. Democracies have become bypartisan and the risk of war and violence has ugly face as never before.

World People's Opinion has conducted a survey of 54000 people across the globe. It has found that there is need for multipolar world. After the disintegration of Soviet Union the world became unipolar and the ascent of the United States as the single world power is posing greaver dangers than ever before. It is obsessed with oil and the terrorists. DorisLessing (88) says "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible." She dubbed US President George W Bush 'a world calamity'. "Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."
She also said that she "always hated Tony Blair from the beginning". "Many of us hated Tony Blair. I think he has been a disaster for Britain and we have suffered him for many years. I said it when he was elected: 'This man is a little showman who is going to cause us problems.' And he did." Another Nobel laureate of literature, Harold Pinter, had branded Bush as the greates terrorist of the world. If these greate creative writers have described the leaders of America and Britain like that then one is reminded of the Nonalignment leaders. Nehru, Nasser and Tito, thou shouldst be living today! The world has need of thee!
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam was from the world of science and hence did not know the full implication when he said that there should be two party system in India.Among the elder statesmen of the world today is the former president of America Jimmy Carter. In his recent book Our Endangered Values:America's Moral Crisis, he remarks "Nowadays, the Washington scene is completely different, with almost every issue decided on a strictly partisan basis. Probing public debate on key legislaltive decisions is almost a thing of the past. Basic agreements are made between lobbyists and legislative leaders, often within closed party caucuses where rigid disipline is paramount. Even personal courtesies, whic had been especiallycherished in the US Senate, are no longer considered to be sacrosanct. This deterioation in harmony, cooperation, and collegiality in the Congress is, at least in part, a result of the rise of fundamentalist tendencies and their religious and political impact."(8) The sharp division in the Indian parliament between the right wing Hindutva and the rest is a nightmare we are living through. Even the nuclear treaty between US and India cannot escape the fate.
How did we come to this sorry pass? Apart from the partition of the country in the name of religion we also neglected Mahatma Gandhi. When he was about to take the 500 crore to Pakistan and tour that country he was cut down in his track. That was a turning role. Let alone Pakistan, dealing with Iran for our energy requirement and the ABC nuclear agreement is subject to this partisan shibboleth. This is in the words of Carter fundamentalist tendency and its religious impact. The turbulence in the neiboughoring Nepal against monarchy forestalled Indian diplomacy because the king there is Hindu and the BJP favoured him against his subject! What we sow we reap. How strange is the turn of events affecting diplomacy!Sardar Patel had arranged the marriage of the heir apparent (Karan Singh) of the king of Kashmir (Hari Singh) to the Hindu princess of Nepal hoping that the two Hindu dominated countries would have closer ties! If we could negotiate with the Talibans and exchange Maulana Masood for the hostages in the plane at Kandahar what prevented us from talking with them for enduring peace.After all the Afghans have much longer relations with Indian than Pakistan.